When the storm came, the fifty could plead no longer. They ran into the forest and then they felt the death of everything they had ever known by the quake of the earth under their feet. They wanted to run so much further away from the nightmare, but they couldn’t. Blocking their way had been the opaque and grotesque nightmares they knew as the Farsiders. The creatures howled and barred the bears from moving forward. They were forced to stay close to the mountain, to hear the screams, to picture the horrors, to live while so many died. When finally the nightmare beasts fled and left the bears alone, a wave of dust overcame them like a tidal wave. They were helpless but to let the broken mountain consume them. When the dust had settled and had painted everything gray, the bears walked onward as the hollow survivors. They walked onward, leaving in their wake a trail of dust and tears.
What do we do now? wondered Eveneye as if there were actually an answer that would help. And what has happened to them? The other thoughts that sprouted intermittently in Eveneye’s mind: What has happened to Evercloud, Riverpaw, and Steven? Have they failed? Is that why the mountain fell? Have we lost all? A humming breached the bear king’s obsessive thoughts and he slowly came to realize that his wife was faintly singing a tune.
“You can’t go back, my young, my young,
My young one, it is true.
Time moves on just like a song,
We all were young, then grew.
So don’t look back, my young, my young,
Go find the skies of blue.
And live a life that’s bold and long,
As any ever knew.”
Goldenheart let her voice trail off to a whisper before she finished the verse and looked at her husband.
“I used to sing that to Evercloud… when he was little.”
“I know you did, Goldie. I remember it…” Goldenheart began to cry again and Eveneye moved close and nuzzled her cheek. “Don’t,” he hushed. “Don’t cry, my sweet.”
“It’s all gone, Even… It’s all gone.”
“But we’re not… not yet.”
“I’m worried about Evercloud. Where is he?”
“He’s out there… finding his blue sky… just like you told him to.” Eveneye looked back into the sky and then behind him, at the bears that still followed. “That’s what we’re all going to do. So sing it louder, my love. Let them all hear you.”
Goldenheart began to sing again, as loud as her broken heart would allow, and gradually, the other bears joined her. After a few verses, she turned to give her husband a sad but hopeful smile and Eveneye felt his hollow heart begin to fill with something other than despair. These bears don’t follow you because you wore a crown, he thought to himself. They follow you because you still search for blue, even underneath an infinite gray sky.
Chapter 6: Distance Between the Sun and the Moon
If the eagle feather in his hand had not been made of such ancient and mystical material, it would have been crushed to dust as he knelt before the crater that used to be his home. Tears fell freely down his face but Evercloud had no space in his heart for despair. Anger was his master now. As his blood boiled, hot rivulets of flame broke across his arms like he had plunged them into a fiery hearth.
Just a meter behind Evercloud, Annie stood silent and afraid. She couldn’t imagine the pain Evercloud was suffering and she felt guilty that her vision hadn’t foretold this doom sooner. She wanted to go to him and wrap her arms around him and tell him that she was sorry, so sorry. She couldn’t bring herself to move though. She had learned that Evercloud was born from the sun, the Skyfather. She had witnessed his power, and now in his moment of wrath, she was terrified of him.
“Who has done this?!” Evercloud bellowed. “WHO?!”
Annie’s fear could no longer stop heavy sobs from shaking her. She wept loudly as Evercloud continued his tirade.
“Come for me!” he cried out to no one and to everything. “Come for me! I will burn you to the ground!”
“Stop yelling,” came a low voice. “It doesn’t help anything.”
Out of the clouds of dust, came the figure of a man Evercloud recognized immediately.
“You,” he uttered.
“Me,” confirmed Densa.
“You saw this happen? You were here?”
“No,” answered Densa, shaking his head. “We came after. We were not here to stop him.”
Epiphany barreled into Evercloud’s stomach, sucking the anger from him and replacing it with nausea. The flames that veined up his arms vanished and his jaw dropped silently. When he had come to the crater, all his thought had been about the mountain, his family and the Kingdom of Bears. All his fears had been for his father and his mother; he had forgotten about her. Iolana.
“Where is she?” he asked quietly and with dread. Densa lowered his gaze and his eyes became glassy. If he had any tears left, one might have escaped him, but all he could do was shake his head slowly. “Where is she?” repeated Evercloud, his voice rising and cracking with fear and anger.
“He came from the dust… out of the nothing,” uttered Densa quietly. “I couldn’t… there was no time… I held her in my arms… and then she was… and then she was…”
“NO!!!” yelled Evercloud and rushed at Densa, his claw raised in the dusty light. Densa’s grief had him ill-prepared for an attack and Evercloud’s rage took him full force. The yellow metal took the Ancient across the shoulder, leaving weeping, red streaks. A left-handed blow to his side doubled him and Densa fell upon his knees. “You let her die! You let him kill her!!”
The accusation brought Densa’s anger back with intensity. He rose from his knees with a strike that lifted Evercloud from his feet and into the air, eventually landing with a thud upon his back.
“Where were you?” Densa shot back at him. “Where were you to save her, you think it such a simple task. I loved her!”
The statement seemed to drain the air from the world and Evercloud pushed himself slowly up to his knees. “I never should have let her leave me.” Evercloud searched in his mind for the moment he had erred. He searched for the answer to why he allowed her to go where there would be danger. The Everlife. “She can’t have died,” Evercloud breathed quietly. “She had the Everlife.”
Though he was quiet, Densa heard Evercloud’s words and they struck him more deeply than any weapon could. “No.”
“Yes,” said Evercloud more loudly. “She had it. The spirits saw it within her. She recognized it within herself once the spirit had told her. Padre Esteban gave it to her… before you killed him.”
Densa lowered his gaze. He could not look at Evercloud. “It was not with her when she died.”
Evercloud grimaced as if he would be ill. “No, no. You? How could she have given it to you?”
“I didn’t ask for it. I didn’t know that she had given it to me until it was too late.”
Evercloud looked at Densa and noticed the wound he had received across his shoulder had healed. This was all too much for him to handle. In a matter of hours, he had been told that he was born of the sun that sits in the sky, he had lost his father, his mother, the home and kingdom he had loved, and now the woman he had loved. His world was under the tyranny of an evil monster and the only person left to help him was a man he hated. Evercloud sat upon the chalky, gray ground and his arms fell limply to his sides. Densa walked slowly over to Evercloud.
“I’m here to help you. You cannot defeat the Tyrant alone.” Densa looked away from Evercloud and folded his arms, afraid to look into a mirror of what he had been just hours before. “Iolana wanted me to help you.”
“I don’t need your help.”
Evercloud stood from the ground and began to walk away.
“Where are you going?” asked Densa.
“Away.”
Annie scurried next to Evercloud as he stalked off into the dust. “What about the prophecy? What about the Earth?”
“Damn the prophecy, damn the Earth… and damn Densa.”
Chap
ter 7: Riddles in the Dark
“Densa!!!”
The palace was in shambles. It looked like a ruin left to ages of history, but it had not been all that long since Tenturo last walked inside, when the walls glowed with the light of the Tyrant, and Tenturo and Densa had battled against their monster creation. Now Tenturo peered around the corners of broken walls, hoping to find his friend, knowing that Densa’s fate must have been worse than his own.
The Farsiders were gone. That was what sunk Tenturo’s hope to such deep depths. The Farsiders were not secret creatures, destructive things of shadow and pain, yes, but one might go as far as to call them social creatures. For without something to terrorize, what was a nightmare really?
Tenturo called out into the darkness without even the natural return of an echo. He was in a void without life, a hopeless abyss of what once was. However, this was the new Tenturo who searched the desolation of the moon, not the old creature of dream and pining. He was a new creature, built of purpose and shaped with a million grains of sand. Tenturo no longer gave himself so willingly to hope. Not to say he did not posses hope, but it was no longer a power that held sway over him. He was the master of hope and he wielded it like a sword.
The reborn Tenturo leapt down the stairs, toward the core of the moon. He remembered how tentative he was to move down these stairs not so long ago. His nerves turned the walls sick with color. There was no color now, no hues to pollute purpose. Tenturo lived in a world of value; there was dark and there was light and he moved in between like wind through trees of gray.
“Densa!!!” he called again as loud as he could. In truth, he did not expect to find him, alas he would not suffice to end his search until it was duly completed.
Tenturo turned his head toward the gate at the moon’s core without fear. What is left to fear? he thought. I have made good, made evil, made life, made death, made pleasure, made pain and had all of those things returned to me. Foolish ideas such as fear dissolve before me into nothing.
The gate was open. Tenturo moved through it without a shudder.
“Densa!!!” he called again, expecting no response. He dipped his head to the floor, about to give an end to his search, when he heard the voice.
“You have come late, ancient one. Densa is no longer here.”
Tenturo’s head rose and gazed forward at the most beautiful, white apparition he had ever laid his eyes upon. Yet as he continued to gaze, he realized that the woman that hovered before his eyes was no apparition at all.
“Tell me that he left this moon in life and not in death, fair woman. Please, tell me that is the truth of it.”
“Sit and be still, Tenturo. I will give you all you need to know.”
“You know me? How is this, when I do not know you? And I have changed… so much.”
“Give me the time to explain,” said the woman gently and floated, ever closer to Tenturo. The woman rested upon a thin slab of smooth rock and sat down, crossing her legs. “I knew you when you were young, and you are not so different as you might think.”
The lady Rhiannon, the woman that was the moon, began to tell Tenturo of ancient beginnings, just as she had told her son a short time before. Tenturo wept for the lady’s pain and he wept to hear of his mothers, the spirits of Earth and Sun. He listened on and learned what had happened to his friend after his battle with the Great Tyrant, and this was when Tenturo could hold his tongue no longer.
“I must go to him,” he said.
“For what purpose?” asked Rhiannon. “Do you imagine that he needs help?”
“Does he not, fair lady? Does he not deserve my help?”
“Tenturo, you dance around the core, even though you sit in its midst. I do not mean to confuse you with cryptic talk, but why would you aid Densa? Specifically?”
“But, the Tyrant of course. He must be defeated. I have seen what he will do to Earth.” Tenturo told Rhiannon of the fate of Desher, the Red One. He told the White Lady of how the Tyrant had tricked the people of that world into helping him destroy Desher. “He will do this to Earth if we do not stop him.”
“This sounds much like what happened to me a very long time ago. No one decided that the great Sun should be destroyed.”
Tenturo was confused with what Rhiannon said to him. “Do you suggest we do nothing?”
“I am not suggesting anything, Tenturo. I am merely trying to figure out why the Tyrant must be destroyed. Many things give life and many things take them away. There will always be these things, or do you wish to make a world where all is infinite and immortal?”
“Well, no… I…”
“There must be someone who makes these decisions.”
“No,” said Tenturo with surprised conviction. “No, I don’t believe there should be.”
“Have you not made these decisions?”
“Well, yes… for life… but not for death without justification.”
“What is your justification for death?”
Tenturo was flummoxed. Was he not at fault for giving life without care for consequence? Had he not doled death out for his own purposes? And what if he could justify it? What was his justification worth against the justification of another?
“My lady, I fear that you paint me into a corner. Are there no answers to these questions? Is there truly no good reason to act?”
“Tenturo, I am merely trying to make you understand that your actions are your own. You justify them, these actions levied by you, but the consequences are not solely felt by you. Have you ever truly come to terms with the fact that you affect the world you inhabit?”
“I…”
“Have you ever made peace with the idea that you are your own judge and jury?”
“This is why the Tyrant must be ended. I am not willing to be responsible for the consequences of his creation any longer. I must end him to end my part in what he does.”
“This is Densa’s goal as well? This is why you must help him?”
“Yes.”
“So you make the decision to give death to the Tyrant, because the Tyrant made the decision to give death to others.”
“I see what you do, my lady. You wish for me to admit that I am no different than the Tyrant because I take life for my own purposes, just as he does. But it is the purposes that matter. My purposes and Densa’s purposes for destroying the Tyrant are good purposes.”
“Why?”
“Because we consider more than ourselves when we make them.”
“No, you don’t.”
Tenturo was defeated. He could not come up with a reason why his intentions were good and why the Tyrant’s were bad. There was nothing he could say to differentiate the actions of the Tyrant from the actions of his own.
“Are we all terrible monsters?” Tenturo asked, shaking his head in frustration. “Is the world merely made up of one creature trying to gain power over another?”
Rhiannon smiled and reached out to touch Tenturo, placing a gentle stroke upon his cheek. “You solve riddles without knowing it. Should we all be so lucky as to stumble upon great truth?”
Tenturo furrowed his brow, momentarily confused, but no sooner than he had, epiphany washed over him like the tides of the sea.
“I was right in seeing the difference in purpose. The Tyrant’s purposes are to exact dominion over all that exists. Densa and my purposes are to release the world from that dominion. We do not wish for power over, we wish for freedom from. We only wish to destroy the one who wishes for power over all.”
“You said that Densa deserved your help. Are you certain of this?”
“I need to become so,” said Tenturo with renewed passion. “Lady, you have given me my purpose.”
“I have given nothing,” said Rhiannon. “Your purpose was there, I have only asked that you judge its virtue.”
Chapter 8: Waiting for the Sun
Evercloud stood along the shoreline of Ephanlarea’s southern coast, staring at the waves as they came, slowly sliding to the shoreline. Hi
s head had become numb from all of the emotion he couldn’t clear away. He searched each whitecap, each spray of salty water, and each kelp-filled pool in the crags of black rock that swirled and foamed with the constant in and out of ocean water. He searched for something he could never have; he searched for peace. He had lost his family, his father, his mother, his home, and his kingdom. He had lost the woman whom he had deep feelings for, feelings he had never had for another. He felt cheated. He felt as if he had worked so long and so hard to achieve something wonderful, and before he could reach a hand out to take it, it had been shattered and torn far from his grasp. His dreams had dissipated like the ocean’s spray; his world had ebbed away like the tide.
He cursed into the air and stooped to pluck a jagged rock from the sand. He hurled it so far at the horizon he couldn’t see it any longer, and then felt the burn of shame. What a childish thing to do, to throw rocks into the ocean. What a terribly purposeless action. It made him feel smaller than he already felt; it made him feel less like a man.
But I’m not a man, am I? he reminded himself.
Evercloud allowed himself to utter another curse, but under his breath. This was never what he wanted for himself. This was never supposed to be part of the plan. He had no memories to prove what Amber had told him, but he knew her words were true. It was why he had become so emotional in her presence, kneeling amongst the clouds and screaming at the great spirit of the Earth and Sun. What a spectacle he had made. What must Amber, his half-sister, think of him? Evercloud turned to look at Annie, sitting upon the sand with her arms folded and her knees tucked under her chin.
What must Annie think of me? he wondered in shame.
The young woman sat fifty yards away from Evercloud and stared at the water. The breeze played at her spiky, black hair and she squinted her eyes in the wind. She looked as lost as Evercloud felt. But she also seemed stronger, he thought. Evercloud considered Annie and immediately felt more shame than he had before. Annie had never known a family, and had barely had a friend in the world. She was perpetually lost in a world where she had no real place. Had she ever loved and lost, had she ever lost a dream?
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